homemade experimental music by Hal McGee and friends 1982 to 2018​Click on the HAL CATALOG tab above to see a list of pages for my 300+ albums.​​Each album's page includes a link to the album's Bandcamp page, where you can purchase downloads.​Info on how to purchase CDRs and Cassettes can be found here.

﻿WoG 0011 - The WoG Sampler!﻿

The WoG Sampler! is a 60 minute tape (the first release of WoG's under 90 minutes) that collected music from sessions that appeared on previous tapes (outtakes?) as well as music from a tape called Greatest Hits, Vol 1 that was the first effort by Evan to collect music made by the eventual WoG participants but never issued by WoG.

Evan Cantor: This was essentially a collection of top out-takes. It included some strong tracks from the original Dirt Clods cassette, which had never been released. It also included some live tracks (Runaway Trucks’ performance) that hadn’t been released. The year 1983 had been a banner year for the band, which hadn’t yet actually been called “Walls Of Genius”. The WoG Sampler!was a kind of overview of the year’s progress. We were dead-set on getting our music reviewed in every issue of the underground press at that time, so it was necessary to fire off official “releases” on a regular basis. This was not problematic as we were recording every jam session, never (what never? hardly ever!) practiced anything, and reveled in our spontaneity.All of the band names have been discussed in previous sets of notes: The Dirt Clods, Ed’n’Evan and Jerry’s Kids were on the original Dirt Clods cassette. Runaway Trucks was a live performance July 31, 1983. Runaway Trucks, The Tender Young Aspen, Leo’s Party and Clovis Points Remains, were all discussed on Little Victor Meets Violent Vince. Christmas In July was discussed on Almost Groovy! K-9 is mentioned on The Many Faces of Mr. Morocco. The Ed’n Evan Hullabaloo was discussed on the notes to Johnny Rocco. The cover was a photo casually titled “Kiddie Porn”. It featured Dena Zocher posing naked (no boobies or pubes) with a Tony the Tiger stuffed animal. Dena Zocher (the one, the only) is discussed in more detail on the notes to the original Dirt Clods tape. The photo was made by one of Dena’s friends, Mikel Secore and we gave Mikel’s address on the liner notes “for prints”. The insert had info about the music on one side accompanied by a photo of Ronald Reagan with the caption “you can’t go to heaven unless you’re dead”, a globe that says “A Look Ahead” and some Arabic lettering that was meaningless to us at the time and remains so to this day. The other side had a variety of illustrations, including a promo photo of David Lichtenberg attempting to hang himself, a businessman with a bozo face drawn on his head by Evan Cantor, a female model whose eyes have been whited-out to produce a demonic effect, a light-bulb, a rat drawn by Evan Cantor, an odd mounted head drawn by Ed Fowler, a photo of an old geezer with a young chick whose manhood has been stimulated and a drawing by Evan Cantor of a flying saucer attacking one of the mesas near Eldorado Springs, Colorado. We thanked all the usual suspects, discussed in previous notes. At this point, Dena Zocher was still listed as a primary member of Walls of Genius, not a guest player.

Little Fyodor (David Lichtenberg): To understand the existence of The WoG Sampler!, I should tell you a story about a man named Kent. Kent Hotchkiss ran a distribution service specializing in underground experimental music out of his home in Fort Collins, another Front Range college town about an hour north of Boulder. The distribution service was called Aeon Music (or maybe Aeon something else or just plain Aeon?), and it may have been one of the most prominent businesses of its type in the world. After all, how many people would try to make a buck off of such a niche market? We saw an ad for this business in one of the many zines we received as part of our underground music activities (maybe Unsound or OP?), and we were pretty blown away first of all just to see that such a business even existed and then that it was so proximate to us, to boot! It wasn’t long before Evan had contacted Kent and had made arrangements for us to come visit him! When we first pulled up in front of Kent’s house, Evan said something like, “So this is the house so much craziness comes out of?” It was a little hard to believe as it looked like any other house in a very ordinary and fairly modest suburbanish neighborhood (I add the “ish” as it wasn’t technically a suburb since I’m pretty sure it was within the city limits of Fort Collins, a town that probably couldn’t be called a suburb itself for lack of any metropolis close enough for it to be associated with, rather it was just a medium sized college town pretty much in the middle of nowhere other than a number of smaller towns scattered about northern Colorado). Kent welcomed us warmly and showed us his basement where he kept his stock of amazing underground experimental records and cassettes, of which there was a pretty hefty amount. We spent the better part of an afternoon there, talking about and listening to underground experimental music. He played us Negativland’s A Big 10-8 Place, which was the first time I had even heard of Negativland much less heard their music. I bought the album from Kent that day. All the while the 150 pound gorilla in the room was the question of whether he would carry Walls Of Genius. I don’t believe either party broached the subject directly. Kent did seem to drop hints that he might very well be interested in our material (I believe Evan had sent one or more samples ahead of time) were it not for the length of our releases. Up to that point, every one of our releases had been C90’s, 90 minute long cassettes. Kent told us that was too long. Now, he never specifically told us he would carry a release of ours if only we cut down on the length, but he seemed interested and he specifically told us that 90 minutes was too long. We took what we considered to be the hint, and the result was The WoG Sampler!, which was only 60 minutes long. It was also made up entirely of recordings that had already existed before work on the tape commenced. Not that any of the pieces had been released before (they hadn’t), but they all came from recording sessions that had already been represented by other pieces on prior WoG releases. I don’t know for sure, but I believe one motivation for this was that it was a quick way for Evan to get something less than 90 minutes long in front of Kent in the hope that Kent would carry it. Well, it didn’t work! The next time we visited Kent, after he’d heard The WoG Sampler!, he continued to drop hints that he might be willing to carry our material, but he also said that “those Dead Puppies” (referring to the first piece on this cassette album) just bummed him right out, which seemed to hint pretty strongly that some of our material interested him, just not our more silly, frivolous side. Well, this story about a man named Kent may continue at some other point, but that’s enough for now! Another reason we released a tape such as this was that there was just still more material from those sessions that we liked and thought deserved to be heard. People had already begun to criticize us for releasing too much and to suggest that we be more selective. But as much material as we released (720 minutes worth in about eight months by this point!), it was never easy to decide what should be included in a release and what should be banished to total, permanent obscurity. And I think it’s fair to say that we did not take the philosophy that we should release only that which presented us in the very best possible light (did we even have a best possible light?), but rather we wanted to present to the world all that we’d done that we liked and thought deserved to be heard! Evan can tell you more about the cover than I can, but I do want to say that when I said that the cover to Cultural Sabotage was our first cover in real time, I may have lied, it may have been this one. I say that because I remember how excited Evan was to learn about this picture of Dena and his saying at that time something about how we finally had something to use for a cover. If that was the case, and I’m leaning ever so slightly towards it, then the Cultural Sabotage cover was likely a close second, if still retro-active since that tape was released before this one. Or maybe both tapes were released effectively at the same time and one just had to be given the earlier and the other the later number (though there was also The Guilt Vs. Time Money Complex in between)? Or maybe Evan learned about this picture first but still used the Canyon De Chelly picture on the earlier Cultural Sabotage tape cause it better matched the content? Anyway, one thing’s for sure and that’s what’s not to be excited about with a photo of Dena wearing nothing but a Tony the Tiger doll and a big grin?!? I believe Evan titled the photo, “Kitty Porn”! (Though I don’t see that on the liner notes, that may have just been a private joke!) Boy, the "Go For It" collage on the Guilt tape was mixed on November 22 and the liner notes for this tape were prepared the very next month. Busy, busy! Evan either found and arranged or directly did all the art on both sides of the liner notes, but that’s a picture of me (that Evan took) in the upper left hand of the reverse side, with me looking like I’m hanging myself….

“Dead Puppies” (The Dirt Clods)EC: Un-released material from the original Dirt Clods cassette, discussed therein.LF: Like a couple of the songs on Cultural Sabotage, “Dead Puppies” hails back to the first proto-WoG session, Dirt Clods, at Ed’s house in very early 1983 (or late 1982?), from before I was involved and before anyone really knew that these shenanigans were going to see some sort of “release”. “Dead Puppies” is of course a well-known novelty song that Ed probably knew from the Dr. Demento show or elsewhere. I’m sure he learned it just cause he liked it and that was enough to perform it and lead a sing along to it at what probably seemed at least as much a party as a recording session. But Evan was recording and that included this song. It’s mainly just Ed playing and singing, plus a few miscellaneous sounds, probably toys of one sort or another, and then I guess the others there join in singing the last chorus at Ed’s urging. It was probably Evan’s idea to release this piece on The WoG Sampler!, since Evan made most WoG decisions, though he asked me for my input sometimes and I asserted my input when I felt strongly enough about something (a phenomenon that increased with time!). Evan might have asked me about including this song and if so I probably said, “Yeah, sure,” though I frankly don’t remember. The thought occurs that once we started releasing our shenanigans to the public on a regular basis, we may not have bothered recording a song like this that was already a funny song without our help. To be clear, I have no problem nor any shame whatsoever with it being on a WoG tape, the thought just occurs that we might not have even considered doing it in the first place after we’d started turning our activities into a recording project for public consumption. Maybe, maybe not. But I thought it was worth addressing that and breaking it down as best I could in light of the above story. Anyway, it leads off The WoG Sampler!, and it’s a sweet and fun rendition of a well-known silly, goofy song!

“Loons Over Boulder” (Runaway Trucks)EC: Live 7-31-83, un-released material. At the Runaway Trucks show, Leo Goya had recited a poem about Loons. This jam may or may not have come in the wake of his recitation, but the title is a reference to that. This is a bass-driven jam with great swooping sounds generated on a synthesizer by David. As Ed ramps up the Echoplex, Evan takes a run on a walking bass line before the piece ends to scattered applause. More about Runaway Trucks in previous notes.LF: Next we’re back to Runaway Trucks, from July 31, 1983, our second live gig ever, with the core morons plus Leo Goya and – Dena Zocher? I think that was probably a mistake of Evan’s to have included Dena in the writing credits as I don’t think she played with Runaway Trucks. Leo’s definitely “back,” though! One thing I did on the synthesizer near the start of this is I programmed it for automatic play and then turned the sound on and off (or up and down) so you only get the programmed part in bits and pieces. Evan, of course, is leading the way on bass, while Ed plays psychedelic guitar and Leo plays incidental Leo-esque doodads and I play the aforementioned synthesizer and then maybe some doodads of my own towards the end…. The title was clearly a reference to the loon poem of Leo’s that he had read during the previous jam, as heard on the Little Victor release….

“Whoopee Cushion Agent Man” (The Dirt Clods)EC: Un-released material from the original Dirt Clods cassette, discussed therein.LF: And then back to the Dirt Clods again. I wasn’t there but it sounds like it was a general, free-form jam with someone (Marsha Wooley?) having big fun with the whoopee cushion, and then Evan starts playing the “Secret Agent Man” riff and someone laughs in recognition and then they all start singing it and finally the whoopee cushion has the last laugh!

“Getting’ Ridda The Dead Wood” (Runaway Trucks)EC: Live 7-31-83, un-released material. This starts with Evan’s flanged bass and a gong, another bass-driven improvisation. David’s voice is run through the synthesizer to interesting and strange effect, answered by Leo on whistle and ocarina. The title is a reference to work-related layoffs, but I don’t recall why we used it.LF: Back and forth and back again to Runaway Trucks. When Leo was around, free form jamming was the primary order of the day! I’m guessing that’s me playing Ed’s gong. I still have that thing, did Ed give it to me? Maybe he saw how much I liked it! Then we hear Leo’s rebar-ang, made of rebar hanging like chimes. Evan’s going crazy on the bass and it sounds like I’m trying to keep up with him on my little Jamaican drum. Leo’s percussion was usually more in its own time and space, like the talking drum that follows that part. Then Evan employs the vocal effect we previously heard on the “Loon Poem” on Little Victor and things get really crazy (man!) for a bit till it dies down enough to allow the audience to applaud….

“The Massacre” (Jerry’s Kids)EC: Un-released material from the original Dirt Clods cassette, discussed therein.LF: “The Massacre” is a great Ed and Evan jam, just the two of them (with Evan finishing up with “Red River Valley” on harmonica). This was from one of the other proto-WoG jam sessions which Evan collected and semi released on a tape that never had a proper name and never was released in its original form in the WoG catalog, just given to participants and a very few others, like me. The “name” of the “band,” “Jerry’s Kids,” was what Jerry Lewis would call the kids with MS that he was raising money for on his Labor Day MS Telethon broadcasts, and thus was also a reference to the wacky parties Ed and his friends would throw while the telethon was on. A bit of sick humor, one might say, but that’s all right with me. It’s tough to be funny without being sick some of the time!

“I Am Iron Man” (The Ed’n Evan Hullabaloo)EC: Un-released material. We obviously knew nothing more of the actual Blakk Sabbath tune than the title and the signature riff. We use it as a springboard for improvisation. This is a great vehicle for Ed Fowler’s lead guitar. It finishes with a surprise track, a short piece from Leo’s Party to end the side without dead space. I was never a big Blakk Sabbath fan, but we were all familiar with at least two of their tunes, “Paranoid” and “Iron Man”. Ed was always more interested in metal music than either David or I, and, as far as I know, remains so to this day, oblivious to the fact that neither David nor I are particular fans of the genre. But we were all fans of metal’s earliest incarnations (Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, etc).LF: The Ed ‘n’ Evan Hullabaloo from our days at Natasha’s house is resurrected next with “I Am Iron Man!” I recall playing the tune on Ed’s little kalimba at the very start of this endeavor, but that didn’t make it onto the released edit, though with luck (?) you might hear me trying to get that in at times during the song’s duration, though most of the time I just played anything. There’s some crazy noise in there that must be Dena’s cello going through some effect? Eventually it turns into a jam only very loosely based on the Sabbath hit and it sounds like it’s about to die off when Brad picks it back up and then soon raves it up even further! And then when it sounds like it’s about to die again, Evan picks it back up himself with his one signature line!! No wonder it was mainly a jam as that one part was all we knew of the song! Obviously we went for it without caring that that’s all we knew! And then at long last it fades out with Ed still wailing away full tilt….

“She Was A Voodoo Queen” (The Tender Young Aspen)EC: Un-released material. This was Evan Cantor’s vehicle, with David (Little Fyodor) helping out on harmony vocals. The Voodoo Queen was likely a nickname given to Evan’s previous landlady, Natasha Brown, but the rest of the piece is unrelated to anything she ever did.LF: The first two pieces of Side B were prescient of some of the techniques we would explore further on later WoG releases. “She Was A Voodoo Queen” was a poem by Evan with a sung chorus on which he had me join in.

“All Get Drunk” (The Tender Young Aspen)EC: Un-released material. This was David Lichtenberg’s vehicle, with Evan helping out with a bass line. I especially love his line about a “green vomit fireball”.LF: “All Get Drunk” was a stream of consciousness poem of sorts by me reflecting various cynical thoughts I had about various things, strung together pretty much randomly. I think this is all me! I’m using some drum machine of mine, probably the Synsonic Drums by Mattel, the first of two drum machines I bought, and this is probably its first appearance. I play guitar and synthesizer too, and there you have four tracks filling up Evan’s Dokordor four track: voice, drum machine, guitar and synth![LF adds: After reading Evan mention his bass line, I can immediately hear it in my head (face palm!) and I realize we probably recorded that during the drum machine track, maybe one of our earlier efforts at recording multiple instruments on a single track, though Evan may have already been singing and playing on single tracks on his solo overdubbed songs, which he started doing even before WoG....]

“Lullaby In Birdland” (Leo’s Party)EC: Un-released material. This is a short piece with Evan playing the melody to the George Shearing jazz standard “Lullaby Of Birdland” on the kazoo. Leo Goya, who hosted the party and jam session, was a big jazz fan, so this was a tip of the proverbial hat to him. Leo lived in Lyons, Colorado.LF: Evan’s singing the tune to an old jazz piece, “Lullaby In Birdland,” through probably that same effect he used a few times in Runaway Trucks, maybe a harmonizer or octavider type thing. I’m probably making that shaking noise, on the cabasa. And Leo’s making some sounds too, it was his party after all!

“Hot Tub In Tokyo” (Ed’n Evan)EC: Un-released material from the original Dirt Clods cassette, discussed therein.LF: Ed’n Evan were another proto-WoG incarnation, another jam session at Ed’s house, before Evan had Natasha’s and then our own Hall Of Genius in which to setup the four track. “Hot Tub In Tokyo” likely featured Evan on recorder and Ed on guitar, just trying out whatever felt good….

“Creature With A Wooden Tongue” (Christmas In July)EC: Un-released material. This starts with a very rhythmic, throbbing line from either the synthesizer or Ed’s Echoplex. Evan drops in with a sinister bass line, played on a fuzz bass, dueling with Ed’s lead guitar. This features super-nice Ed Fowler lead guitar. Etymology of the song’s title escapes me, but it sounds like an Ed idea.LF: Andrea DiNapoli is playing her own drum set (instead of me or Evan) on this previously unearthed selection from the Christmas In July session. Evan’s setting the pace on bass, Ed’s playing psychedelic guitar, I hear Leo on various percussive things, and I’m probably doing something percussive in there somewhere too….

“Evan’s Blues” (Ed’n Evan)EC: Un-released material from the original Dirt Clods cassette, discussed therein.LF: My copy of the original tape that Evan collected his earliest jams with Ed on actually shows “Evan’s Blues” coming from the Jerry’s Kids session, from which there was another piece called “Ed’s Blues”. Ed must be playing guitar since Evan’s clearly playing the harp, though it sounds oddly more like Evan’s playing to my ears at the moment. Evan’s also singing dem blues, quite extemporaneously, I’m sure….

“Jimi’s Strange Dream” (K-9)EC: Un-released material. This fades in on Andrea DiNapoli’s violin and then Ed takes over with an ethereal finger-picking rhythm on the electric guitar. There is nice echoing stuff on a digital delay, probably Evan on his own electric guitar, along with some plucked violin. I believe that the title was given by Evan, inspired by a Hendrixian sound to Ed’s guitar introduction.LF: I believe Evan is playing Andrea’s violin on “Jimi’s Strange Dream,” a very nice piece of improv. Ed’s playing guitar, through his Echoplex. I only hear the two of them, Andrea and I must’ve been watching! Towards the latter part, I think Ed may have been imitating the plucky sounds Evan had begun to make on the violin….

“Facile Explanations” (Clovis Points Remains)EC: Un-released material. This opens with a nice duet between the bass clarinet (Claude Martz) and the electric bass (Evan Cantor). They trade licks along with synthesizer accompaniment and finally hit a groove after a while. The groove collapses and they return to trading licks around a herky-jerky walking bass-line. Then they find yet another groove with a nice soaring, voice-like clarinet solo before devolving into another walking bass section. This time the walking bass is not broken up into pieces, but continues on a slightly more maniacal track. The title is a description of many a euphemism in this world, but, again, I don’t’ recall who thought it up.LF: Clovis Point Remains brings Claude Martz back on the bass clarinet. Turns out all of the recordings on this tape were made before we moved into the Hall Of Genius. I can tell that’s my primitive guitar playing and it’s Evan on nimble bass. I think I’m the one who overdubbed the synthesizer later. I think I soon got much better on that thing!

“Steppin’ Stone” (Clovis Points Remains)EC: Un-released material. Evan has moved to rhythm guitar and the clarinet plays the familiar melody. Fyodor starts singing the chorus and Evan joins in. Nice clarinet throughout. You hear Evan’s voice “quoting” from Herman’s Hermits “Henry VIII”, “Second verse, same as the first” before Fyodor sings the verse. Evan joins again at the chorus with an operatic vibrato. For all the flack we had received regarding demented cover versions, this is the only one on the Sampler cassette. It’s also the only one (besides “Dead Puppies” which was an entirely different approach and doesn’t quite count as such) where we actually knew both the verse and the chorus and played relatively faithful to the original.LF:Claude seemed a little bemused when we started playing The Monkees’ “Steppin’ Stone” as it wasn’t the kind of thing he would normally do, but he played along with a smile and I think he enjoyed it! Evan seems to be playing my guitar, probably still plugged in from the last jam. Both me and Evan are singing at first, then it’s only me. This must have been quite off the cuff as it took me a bit to remember the lyrics to the one verse! (Or maybe a songbook was produced?) Another surprise at the end. Did we pioneer the hidden track? I recognize Andrea’s voice but not that keyboard! I wonder whose hair she liked….